take your answer off the air...

Talker's MagazineThe quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).

The AdvocateNo, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.

Media MattersDocumentation of right-wing media in video, audio and text.

Orcinushome of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups

Hominid Views"People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.

Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.

Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."

The Moderate VoiceThe voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.

News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.

HistoryLinkFun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.

right-wing blogs we like

The Reagan WingHearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.

~~ "If I believe the country will suffer with either Hillary, Obama or McCain, I would just as soon the Democrats take the hit," comedian Rush Limbaugh told Washington Post
columnist Howard Kurtz. Would a McCain presidency be a setback for Big
Pants? "My success is not defined by who wins elections," he intoned.
"Elected officials come and go. I am here for as long as I wish to
stay."

~ Alan Colmes hearts BlatherWatch, and now we heart Alan Colmes.
Hannity's eager piñata dropped us a line this week: "I really enjoy
your site," he wrote. And linked us to his blog Liberalland, which we now really enjoy. Now
that we're close, we wish his radio show were in our market, so we
could suck up to him even more... maybe get a meat-up with Sean
Hannity.

~ We
know that Too Beautiful To Live (KIRO m-f, 7-10p) isn't for us. And we're used to being the oldest one in the room. And we're usually impressed with the Next Gens we know. But the long, long segment on TBTL Thursday with the silly little coeds with their Make-out Test, and ditzy, kissy-face drunk-a-logs were turnoffable for any listener with a watt in their head. Damnit, we dial-up the show to hear about Luke's skin problems, and
black-out drunks -- not the skin problems and black-out drunks of pseudonymous sorority girls. TBTL is some booze-obsessed radio!

~~ Why, God, oh, why?.. when you Google, what to eat so you do not get hemorroidal? you get directly to BlatherWatch???

~~ More Google keyword news: Laura Ingraham, (KKOL m-f, 6-9a)
that striking blonde, neocon harpy in all of our faces this week
bitching about that knee-jerk liberal John McCain, inspired masses of
Google searches for "Laura Ingraham naked," completely eclipsing our
usual flood of requests for "Michelle Malkin naked." Any thing with
"naked" in it brings you here, of course... especially "naked WalMart
girls," or "naked lunch." Laura, 45, is single;
though she's been engaged at least twice: once to the little neocon
prig, Dinesh D'Souza (author's note: yuck -- would not have wanted to be a fly
on the wall during that coupling). She once dated scandal-ridden Democratic
former congressman Robert Torricelli, so she's probably not as virginal
as you'd expect with all the prudish lecturing you get out of her. We
did hear her once say that she thought GW Bush was "hot." (There are no on-line pictures of her naked, btw, so don't bother looking).

~~ We're hearing something or another REALLY BIG will happen
to the KIRO Sunday schedule; we can't find what it is. PD Rod Arquette
(KIRO m-f, 9-5p) has made us certain assurances, and he's never lied to
us. Can't listen to KIRO any more on weekends (our cat needs his anals
expressed) but if you hear anything different, be sure to write.

~~ KIRO's redheaded stepsister KTTH must be awful lonesome
over there for Dave Boze, (KTTH m-f, 3-6p) Nobody but him
and those robots who only talk to the "birds." Bummer, too-- no live
streaming, no podcasts, no drinking fountain. Must be kinda like the first Golf War.

~~ It's the sign of the times. Get fired, then get a blog. (except for Goldy who did it the other way around). The Truly
Unpleasant Bryan Styble, a victim of last week's Bonneville massacre, is
now blogging over at
radioactiveprattle.blogspot.com where he writes
gushing and self-aggrandizing posts about Seattle radio he hopes will be read by
the local programmers whose asses he's trying to smooch as he's
job-hunting. Wouldn't bother to mention this except he insists on
mau-mauing our comments threads with links to promote his site, which
is bad form in blogland. And we thought Bryan was all about propriety and the order of things.

~~ He survived last week's Black Wednesday which must say something about Phil the Junkie's
(KIRO Sundays, 4-7p) show, though we're up to here trying to figure out
exactly what that may be. We're liking his blog on the KIRO Dori page
where we learned about yet another employee toilet atrocity. Last year
there was the ladies room incident which was duly reported in a KIRO
blog: "There is a woman here at KIRO ... major market radio here-
who seems bent on goin’ potty and then leaving the seat cover right
there on the toilet for someone else to have touch and throw away!
That’s just gross!" This week, Phil's blog cited another outrage at the Eastlake pooper:
"As I arrive this morning," he writes, "one of my co-workers
emerges from the bathroom with a couple of sections of newspapers and
proceeds to walk to a table in the news room where all of the day's
review subscriptions sit for people to access. The co-worker then
re-inserts the different sections he was reading in the bathroom back
into the newspapers sitting on the table in the newsroom.
Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww." These people have no shame: BlatherWatch will pay for information leading to the outing of that employee. Dori?

~~ What does Microsoft's bid for Yahoo mean to radio?
"It means we're idiots to be in radio." according to radio guru Walt
Sabo. "Yahoo is a failing business with a history of bad management and
inability to fight competitors — not to mention a horrible home page —
and it's worth billions of dollars? The same bankers cry when a radio
station, with decades of positive cash flow, a stable customer base and
50% margins, asks for more than eight times cash flow in sale. Work
your butt off in radio and get fired. Do nothing at a web company and
get $400 billion. Yep, we're idiots."

~~ AM1090 (KPTK) has partnered with Cell Phones For Soldiers
and is collecting used cell phones to help our troops call home. Drop
off your used phones at the studios at 1000 Dexter Ave N, Suite 100 in
Seattle. CPFS will recycle the phones into more than 12 million minutes
of prepaid calling cards for US troops stationed overseas. It's also a
big plus for the environment.

WISDOM OF THE [RADIOINFO] BOARDS:TakeItFromMeRe: Surviving Cutbacks«Reply #2 on: February 04, 2008, 06:05:34 pm »Radio
ain't a free ride anymore, cowboys. Morning shows that get up at 3:00a
and work til 5:00p will survive. Smiley Jocks that come in a half hour
before their shift, do two or three breaks an hour while checkin' the
internet and payin' bills -- the gravy train is over. At my old station
in a top ten market only mornings are live and the rest of the day
tracked. Guess what: the ratings are up. The ax is fallin' and if you
don't wanna be under it you might pick up some production or help out
the promotions cowboys or god forbid spend some time on your airshift
before you go on the air. Clear Channel and Bonneville are the first
wake up call with big ole cuts at KIRO, KTTH and KBSG over the last
four months. Entercom and Infinity are beginning to follow. Don't be
all smiles over at Sandusky and Fisher, this cowboy is bettin they got
smaller pockets than the big boys.

Comments

The KFI AM 640 stream wasn't working this evening so I could not listen to golden boy Bryan Suits and was stuck with TBTL. What is with Luke's obsession with being the "leader" in every metaphor? When rambling on with one of his inane stories this evening he started "We were totally like the 3 stooges, it's like Sean was Larry and I was Moe - wait, is Moe the leader? Oh okay, it was like I was Larry and then ..." Then later on there was another metaphor where he insisted on identifying himself as "the leader". He wasn't doing it in a humorous or tongue-in-cheek way either.

I also can't stand how he constantly feels the need to "explain the big city" to us dumb local yokels up here on the frontier. How many stories start out "When I was living in LA - ok now first I better explain, here's the thing you need to understand about LA ...". Just because Dori may have never left Ballard doesn't mean your entire listening audience is geo-dumb, dude.

That show is 180 minutes of pure conceit and attitude.

And he does a crappy job on the AT&T promos. Even though you are, please try to not sound like you're reading the script. Whatever you have to say about Ron & Don they deliver kick-ass promos. That's why I give R&D all three and why I've also switched my cell service to AT&T - your world, delivered.

This is all aside from the fact that the 3 hour discussions of the latest album from Snow Patrol, what was on dailycandy.com, how good the cupcakes are at Magnolia in the West Village, etc. are just nauseating to begin with (to be fair, only 1 of those 3 topics are things that I've actually heard mentioned, I'm just guessing the other two will materialize fairly soon)

And is Jenn actually live in-studio or has she just made an MP3 of her laugh that Sean cues up whenever Luke tells a "joke"? I kind of get the feeling she died 3 weeks ago and they're waiting to break it to us. Like a Moon Over Parador kind of thing.

Oh, and before I forget, a big congrats to mynorthwest.com for getting even fewer visitors than the KIXI website. Pretty sad when a three-station super-site can't outdo the homepage for a single AM music station. (Do the Spanish-American War vets who listen to KIXI even know what the internet is?)

Several posters have complained that Luke is egotistical, stuck on himself, etc. If you actually listen to the show, Luke is nothing if not self-deprecating. Some wish to criticize for the sake of being critical, for whatever sick, twisted reasons.

Luke IS stuck on himself. It
's cloying and obnoxious. Also, I realize that we live in a bubble of ridiculous, out-of-fashion p.c. feminism, but can't we have a female co-host who doesn't have a voice that sounds like a mannish, ballbusting dominatrix. How about some truly female tones.

exactly, Gary. All the condescending references by Luke to us Seattle rubes about LA and New York. Erin Hart used to do that. She would "explain" things to us about certain big back east cities as if none of us had ever travelled or lived anywhere else. Luke seems to have to remind us constantly that he really is still a bigtimer, and this local show thing is just a hobby he indulges in between his bigtime life in LA and New York. Pure conceit and attitude. exactly, And narcissism. Actually Dori HAS travelled, nationally and abroad, but with a guy like him, he'll never be anything but a smalltime provincial, despite the travel.

>>>Luke seems to have to remind us constantly that he really is still a bigtimer, and this local show thing is just a hobby he indulges in between his bigtime life in LA and New York. Pure conceit and attitude. >>>

I'm giving up on terrestrial radio. I bought a sat receiver for my car which hasn't been installed, yet but will be this weekend. There is nothing to listen to anymorein my long late drive to and from the eastside but crap and right wing. NPR is good for one round of news, then it repeats. Had hopes for TBTL, now it's just a hipper version of R & D. I'm willing to pay, and I have. NO COMMERCIALS!!!!

I still think there's entertainment value in TBTL. Luke Burbank is a talent, he may be into himself but as someone said, aren't all talk show hosts. I will continue to give the show a listen as it is 'easy-listening' with a local flavor and in my book beats the National BS shows that otherwise permeate the airwaves.

And what's up with this "how fast can I grow a beard / OMG, I totally can't even grow a beard" featurette? This is like warmed-over Conan O'Brien chatter, circa 1995, 2005, 2015. It's like listening to one of those guys who inevitably show up at a party and has memorized some famous comedian's monologue and thinks he's the belle of the ball because he can recite it ... get your own schtick, dude!

I can't believe anyone would call out Luke Burbank on being self referencial when considering that of DORI FUCKING MONSON and his constant reference to his DOG STAR AND THE GIRLS or FRANK SHIERS and his references to HIS DAUGHTER. When it comes shining a spotlight on one's own shit those two are unmathed.

Yes, the Investor's Business Daily is definitely an unbiased source of climatological study.

Lets see, it quotes an astonomer (Mr. Abdusamatov) who has yet to provide any ...nada...data or research on his conclusion that greenhouse gases don't trap heat...Mr Patterson, a Canadian geologist,affiliated with Heartland Institute, the Mobil/Exxon funded thinktank...and the Hoover Inst "expert" Bruce Berkowitz, is a national security/terrorism guru, no background in climate, a political scientist.

Regarding Luke's LA/NY mentions: we call that "THE EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION" among adults. Anyone who feels threatened probably has serious feelings of inadequacy.

Regarding the person who claimed that Luke and Jen were sleeping...NO! Though I'm not surprised some would think that, due to the beautiful hand-in-glove fit between Luke and Jen that is so rare between co-hosts, and alone is reason enough to give TBTL a listen and a chance.

"..and as a Friday oddem of sorts, could it be that instead of Gorebull Warming, we may have to be concerned about Global Cooling??

Posted by: Duffman | February 08, 2008 at 01:34 PM"

darn, what in the heck will Joanie do with all those carbon offset credits she has amassed?
You know, those thingies that rich people who fly their own personal jets do to salve their conscience? You know, those rich people that like to lecture others about saving the environment.

Or Puts, this article in the Seattle Times about how much more greenhouse gases are produced to make biofuels. The very same fuel they praise as the way to make the United States less dependant on foriegn oil and the miracle fuel that will save the planet. What a scam they got going.

I wanted to get over to Chelan tonight to visit my dad. Damn global warming wont let me get over the pass. If I do get over east bound, no guarantee that I can come west tomorrow.
Do something you guys!!!!! Pay more taxes and drive Prious'. Make your cows quit passing gas.

"Or Puts, this article in the Seattle Times about how much more greenhouse gases are produced to make biofuels. The very same fuel they praise as the way to make the United States less dependant on foriegn oil and the miracle fuel that will save the planet. What a scam they got going."

Biofuels will help an infinitesimal amount in the cost- it will save fossil fuels though. There is a lot of flatulence in the quote above. Nuclear power with the recent technology of recycling spent fuel and disposing a very small amount is the elephant in the room, staring us in the face. The global warming hysterics are in big denial about this. That is the real scam !

KS
I agree with you on nuclear fuel. The French and Japanese rely heavily on this very green fuel source. The problem with other green fuels is the law of unintended consequences. ie we don't have enough space to grow sufficient corn without impacting the cost of foods. corn is such a food staple that diverting it to other uses increases the price and hurts the poor.
If I am not mistaken, McCain gave some unpopular talk in Iowa regarding the use of corn for fuel.

KVI am 570 KHz Visit the burnt-out husk of one of the seminal right-wing talkers in all the land. Here's where once trilled the reactionary tones of Rush Limbaugh, John Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Mike Siegel, Peter Weissbach, Floyd Brown, Dinky Donkey, and Bryan Suits.
Now it's Top 40 hits from the '60's & '70's aimed at that diminishing crowd who still remembers them and can still hear.

KTTH am 770 KHzRight wing home of local, and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larsony, and for an hour a day: live & local David Boze.